I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

gboulton

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Bronze Supporter
Apr 24, 2012
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Nashville, TN
I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGHGHHGHGGHGHHG!! :mad::pukel::suspect::thumbdown:

So yeah. 4 years has taught me that I tend to replace a cover every year, never seem to get the sucker off/out cleanly in the spring, always wind up shocking and vacuuming for 2-3 days ANYway because of the crud that drops in while I'm removing it, and generally just DO NOT LIKE the whole process of dealing with the whole cover/uncover process.

Me in late 2016 : "I'll just leave it uncovered this winter. A few days of shocking and cleaning...heck, I do that anyway. How bad can it be?? BAH GAWD, I'M A BBB GUY!"

Me on May 13, 2017.

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"Alright, self. You made your bed. Time to swim in it."

100 new pounds of sand went into the filter, along with a whole new set of laterals. Then :

  1. Dump a truck load of bleach in
  2. Vacuum, brush, and backwash like mad.
  3. Wait

Literally bought 2 local WalMarts completely out of bleach. Also learned that Home Depot is a pretty amusing place to visit when your picking up your online order of 10 cases of the stuff. "Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am, that's correct. What's that? Oh, well, it's a particularly messy murder scene see...."

Finally, on day 3, depression (and tadpoles) began giving way to hope.

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Soooooooooo much brushing, vacuuming, and backwashing. My god, the brushing, vacuuming, and backwashing. Oh, and bleach. Always bleach. More bleach. And more bleach. OH MY GOD, THE BLEACH.

Week 1 ended with something that resembled most public pools. At this point, I'd actually drug out the :testkit: and started trying to monitor a few things. CYA was 0 (I know y'all often say it shouldn't disappear in the winter...but mine ALWAYS does, has every year), so dumped enough in to get to about 30 or so, got a FC value > 50 so felt like I was still well into deep shock (and so was the pool *har*), and the smell told me all I needed to know about CC.

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Week 2 was more of the same. Brushing, vacuuming, digging things out (now that I could sort of see blurry smudges at the bottom to know something was there!) and beginning to test for real. Finally, last Wednesday (11 days!) I got those magic numbers we all dream of. 1ppm OCLT and 0 CC! :party: Still wasn't clear, but I knew we were on the downhill side now. Started vacuuming and brushing EVEN MORE, and letting FC come down from ~60 to 20 or so over the next few days.

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Just keep brushing, just keep brushing, just keep brushing! (And vacuuming, and backwashing...)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand....This morning, just in time for Memorial Day! Gonna be a little cold, but DON'T CARE! :paddle:

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103 jugs of 8.25% Bleach, 16 days, and god KNOWS how many hours of vacuuming, brushing, and backwashing. I will never not cover my pool again!

  • Temp : 20°C
  • FC : 7.0
  • CC : 0.0
  • CYA : 50
  • TA : 100
  • pH : 7.4

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I know I don't post often, but that doesn't mean I'm not lurking. SO many of you experts, long-timers, and mods are constantly giving solid, reliable, sound advice, and encouraging others to stay the course. Had you guys shouting in the back of my mind this whole two weeks... "TRUST THE SYSTEM!". Thank you for all you guys do!

Trust the system, indeed. :)
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

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Wow. 103 jugs. Now THAT's a lot of bleach. But you did it. :goodjob:
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

Great job clearing the swamp! You know, if you don't cover your pool over winter, you can still add bleach and keep the algae at bay. Even if you remove the pump and filter, just put in your bleach and brush the pool to mix it in.
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

Note what Zea said above: If you don't cover your pool, or even if you do, you need to continue to maintain it in some fashion. Check FC and look at overall water clarity. If you let it get green you are going to have to SLAM. So don't let it. Keep up the chlorine and keep the water clean. Check the pH and other stuff too. A small amount of care during the off season will pay off in the end.
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

I love this! Thanks for sharing. The pics are awesome! Jump in there :paddle: and have a great Memorial Day!

Thanks! :)

Wow. 103 jugs. Now THAT's a lot of bleach.

The entire town is wearing dingy grey t-shirts because of me....

Great job clearing the swamp! You know, if you don't cover your pool over winter, you can still add bleach and keep the algae at bay. Even if you remove the pump and filter, just put in your bleach and brush the pool to mix it in.

I KNOW, I KNOW! I just kept being lazy, too busy, or too confident in an easy spring!

LOL! Thanks for posting! I too was considering not covering my pool for the same reasons. I will now continue to cover the pool regardless of the battle!

It DOES make life easier... *lol*

Note what Zea said above: If you don't cover your pool, or even if you do, you need to continue to maintain it in some fashion. Check FC and look at overall water clarity. If you let it get green you are going to have to SLAM. So don't let it. Keep up the chlorine and keep the water clean. Check the pH and other stuff too. A small amount of care during the off season will pay off in the end.

Yep. :)

Always before, I've simply brought it up to mustard algae shock levels and thrown the cover on. Spring comes around, pull the cover off to clear clean water....well, right up until i dump all the **** I can't clean off the cover back into it. *lol*

Oh well...all part of the adventure, right? :)
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

Try and recruit some extra hands to take the cover off. Start at one end and peal the cover off like a skin. Have someone on each side and one person you don't like so well at the end to hold the cover so it doesn't slip into the pool. That end guy is going to get a little wet so give them fair warning so they won't let go of the cover prematurely.
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

Try and recruit some extra hands to take the cover off. Start at one end and peal the cover off like a skin. Have someone on each side and one person you don't like so well at the end to hold the cover so it doesn't slip into the pool. That end guy is going to get a little wet so give them fair warning so they won't let go of the cover prematurely.

We have 2 teenagers. It hasn't helped. *lol*

Never have had a problem getting the cover *off* the pool. Get it nice and gathered up over at one side just fine. The issue has always been the gunk and nastiness that collects on top of the cover, that won't get through the pump we use to drain the cover. It just winds up too heavy to lift out, and attempts always result in failure.

Tried beach-balls one year to keep the center raised, that failed miserably (stupid beach balls deflated). Tried being IN the pool one year...all I got was cold and wet. Neighbor tried some bleach and regular siphoning one year, which did a decent job of keeping "cover scum' away...but the bleach ate the cover alive. Admittedly, probably more a combination of cheap cover + too much bleach too often, rather than "bad idea", but it still wasn't promising. Figured this year I'd try the "no cover" method...we see where that got me. :)

Admittedly, the lesson this year has been that even if there's a few days of shock and cleanup to do, it beats the heck out of neglecting it for the winter!

I'm still noodling on it though...I'll have plenty of relaxing afternoons this summer to think about it. :)
 

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Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

You can try getting a squeegee for your pool pole and shove the goop over the side. Leaf blower might work too.
 
Re: I'll be over here writing "I will never not cover my pool again" 50 times...

awesome read - thanks gboulton

:) Thanks!

How about draining the cover with your pump as you normally would but then scoop out the gunk with a leaf net before you try to get the cover off?

That's part of the process.

Honestly, I think y'all are over-engineering it. It's really not a big technical issue...I just got frustrated with the hassle, figured this would be easier, was wrong, had a fun adventure recovering from my bad decision. :)

Opening before has always like this :

Spring rolls around, there's...however much water/gunk/filth/leaves/crud that has ponded in the center of the cover. Grab leaf net, remove as much crud as I can.

Throw pond pump in middle, pump water off, retrieve and clean, repeat until what's left is roughly the consistency of wet concrete. Leaf net won't "hold" it well enough to scoop it out, but it's too thick for the pump to make any headway.

Take cover off to clean clear water. YAY! Get cover to side of pool with all the edges bunched up to form sort of a 'sack' with all the heavy crud down in it.

Too heavy to lift over the side, get sick and tired of trying to get my arms down in there to scoop the crud out with a cup or whatever, and finally get frustrated, and He-Man the thing over the side.

Clumsy, lose grip on one part of the cover, the "sack" spills everything into the pool. So here I am having spent $75 on a cover I'm probably going to have replace anyway because I was too cheap last fall to buy a good one, and I'm STILL shocking and vacuuming my pool! :rant: :rant: :rant:

So this year, I tried the easy way out. Why spend $, go through the hassle, and have to do all that anyway. Can't get THAT bad, right? :D

So yeah, there's probably 1000 different ways to "be more careful" or "be more attentive during the winter" or "be more patient removing the cover"....I just didn't want to mess with them. I'll be more inclined to in the future. :) This wasn't really a "Help I can't remove my cover" so much as it was a "Hey everyone! Look what an idiot I am!" post.


You can try getting a squeegee for your pool pole and shove the goop over the side. Leaf blower might work too.

Haven't tried a leaf blower...seems the gunk and filth would be too heavy, and sagged down in the middle too far to do much good. But hey, clearly I've failed at everything else, so it goes on the list of things to try next time! Seems like it might fit right in with my penchant for trying to find the easy way out and winding up with a disaster! :goodjob:
 
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